This morning, with spring coming on and a little warm egg yolk dripping onto crispy toast and a mug of hot coffee, I read about thin determined boys starving in Mongolia and refusing to die. Iggulden's a good enough story teller to bring you into the scene, make you feel you could ride and shoot, be a Khan if the chance came. Vanity! Yet exciting. My blood runs hot enough to be engaged.

I've read one of these before, so I expected it to go down easy like a light beer, perhaps unsophisticated, but refreshing and good for you. That was about exactly right. Not a complicated book and more fiction than historical, but it's true enough! There was just such a man, real, and he lived an exceptional life, and if it was not exactly as told, then near enough as makes no difference. I enjoyed this a lot, admittedly more than I expected.

For a comparison, those who know Bernard Cornwell's series of infantryman Sharpe will not be disappointed: they're very similar authors.